Solo project I’ve been building this month, wanted to share here. The rules:
You get $10,000 and two secret years of real S&P 500 history, drawn from 1928 to 2019 (daily data, dividends included; your cash earns T-bill rates while you hide). One button: BUY or SELL. Your opponent is a couch. It buys at the start and never moves.
Every finished game is audited by 1,000 monkeys. It’s a permutation test 1,000 replays with your same time in the market and same number of trades, on random days. Beat 90% of the monkeys and your win is stamped TIMED THE MARKET. Anything less is stamped LUCKY, in red ink, on your settlement document.
About 84,000 games have been played so far. The couch has won 63% of them. Roughly 1 game in 9 ends in a win that survives the monkey audit.
There’s also a daily hand, same secret window for everyone, streaks, and a public ledger of humanity vs the couch.
If you have time, I’d love feedback, and I will answer any methodology questions, thanks!
You must log in or # to comment.
Also, the website is quite lightweight, it loaded instantly (i have a very bad connection rn, and almost every site takes 2 years to load 💔)
love it mate!
No wonder the couch usually wins. It’s being fucked by J.D. Vance and has access to insider information.
Not today mate, good project
you won, congrats. and thanks mate, appreciate it
I like this. In general, no, you can’t beat the couch. Buy and hold S&P 500, and sit your ass on the couch.
yes, the message remains the same in reality and in theory
In Australia grab the betashares app and then buy and hold DHHF, and sit your arse on the couch
Very fun game!
8 trades and timed the market - that’s rare glad you enjoyed it mate!
That was a lucky round with some hard, prolonged dips, so easy to time. Played three rounds now, one loss, one pure luck and this one. What is the logic behind what months the years start in? Noticed in the screenshot it started in November, and played a brutal loss now that started in October 82. Individually chosen month per start year?
totally random and secret (so if you have any knowledge of the actual market, you can’t really ‘time’ things)
Makes sense. Smart move. Was a little surprised by it, as my assumption going in was a year starts in January, but good choice to keep it truly random.
Not today, couch
congrats - but it’s a lcuky win - gotta get that “timed the market” win to prove it : )
The thesis - you do better in the market than holding cash - is a strong one. But the premise - that the only source of information you have available is the current real time… I’m guessing DOW Jones Index? it’s deeply flawed.
Also, that you only have two years of investment time. And you start with $10k but never have more income to invest.
Where’s p/e or p/b values? Where’s dividend yields or debt to equity? Is there any other useful information to trade on - like Fed Interest Rate changes or technological breakthroughs or government spending policy?
You don’t have to simply throw your money at the market blindly and you aren’t forced to invest exclusively against a small basket of blue chip industrial firms.
You might also consider time periods prior to the bottom of the market in '29. Adjust your boundaries back a century - 1829 to 1929 - and the long string of depressions plus a civil war give you much better odds against the couch.
appreciate the feedback - obviously this is a rather simplified game trying to deliver a message. my personal experience is that having all that extra information in the real world doesn’t really translate to beating the market as well. the buffett experiment is my go to in that sense
Something along the lines of buy companies you believe in, and hold them?
yes but even “simpler” than that - buy the S&P500 (it’s an index fund, average of all the the top 500 companies in the stock market) and hold. over the mid to long run it’s going to serve you well.
This is awesome. I’ve timed the market twice, gotten lucky a dozen times, and lost… We’re not going to talk about the losses…
Great implementation! I love it!
well if you won like 15ish times, then you’ve probably lost (does the math)… yeah let’s not talk about the losses. glad you enjoyed it mate!
Well, my feedback: it wasn’t clear to me what “the couch” meant, only when I read it here in your explanation. I clicked around a bit on your website but couldn’t find it. Maybe I’m just dumb (a couch can’t do anything, of course, but then how did it buy stock in the first place?), but I don’t know much about stock trading so I thought it was a term I didn’t know.
Other than that it plays well and gets the point across, which is nice in a game. I also like the look, well done.
Replace the word “couch” with “do nothing.”
Or “buy and hold strategy.” It is boringly effective and over the long term always beats individuals trying to time the market.
Much of the game is meta referencing finance (Bogelhead) memes.
On the topic, I strongly recommend any or all of: “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” by Burton Malkiel, “The Little Book of Common Sense Investing” by John Bogle, and “The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing” by Mel Lindauer.
Kudos to OP, btw. Great stuff. I look forward to playing it later and having my kids play it as well.
Cute! Love the presentation. Fun little game.
thank you, appreciated mate
First try! Cool project.
love it. now repeat it : ) thanks mate, apprciated
I was reluctant to repeat it because I was playing just before sleep. I knew I wouldn’t be able to, and will lose sleep over it 😂
do it, give into the couch-side…
I dislike that if there is a tie, the couch is still labelled as the winner on the result screen…
yes, the idea is if you are in the market 100% of the time you technically draw but the couch has the moral victory : )
Eh, I wouldn’t call it moral, but I can absolutely see one point that would tip the scale toward the couch in a draw:
If it is a draw, then you as a trader have no reason to exist, this as a couch doesn’t require any salary to keep not trading.
yes, very cheap to maintain other than the occasional cleaning : ) glad you enjoyed it mate
Exactly, and the challenge is to beat the couch, but to tie with it. But as someone else pointed out, the whole premise is somewhat flawed- it is more or less relevant for “technical analysis “; but most traders in the real market try to use information other than the price. That said, I’m a strong believer of passive investing so it’s a fun demonstration.
yes you’re right and glad you enjoyed it
Well, the couch didn’t have to work for its position like the player did, so I’d assume that’s a good reason to give the tie to the couch
I mean, the first round I didn’t do anything, so both me and the couch did the same amount of work…
ez first try
well, you were lucky your first time. now try to actually time it : )
Me 2 Couch 0
fair - still, if you get the monkey percentile (at the bottom) over 90, then it counts as timing the market and not just pure luck. but yeah, you made your money, so doesn’t matter how you made it : )
